


A Practical Fairy Tale

by seedsofhappy



Category: DBSK|Tohoshinki|TVXQ
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Gen, M/M, Magic, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-30 08:47:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seedsofhappy/pseuds/seedsofhappy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In this universe, Yunho and Changmin are friends. One day Changmin wakes up to find that he has turned into a girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Practical Fairy Tale

Changmin wakes up this morning to something rather interesting.

The first thing he notices is that his arm, swung on top of the pillow he’s hugging in front of him, seems smaller than it was yesterday, smaller and covered with soft fuzz instead of hair.

“This could be a good thing,” he thinks to himself, feeling along his legs and satisfied to find them in the same condition.

But wait, does this hair-thinning thing affect his whole body or just his arms and legs? Because he seriously can’t afford to be bald at the age of 25.

In a panic, he touches his head and lets out a sigh of relief when he feels lustrous tresses in between his fingers, tresses cool and smooth like water and extending long long long.

What the.

Changmin slips off his bed then tiptoes to the bathroom.

***

“Oppa wake up.” Changmin cups Yunho’s face with both of his hands and starts shaking it.

Yunho blinks once, twice then snaps his eyes open. “Who are you? Where am I? This is my house how did you get into my house?” he sits up and mutters in one breath.

Changmin, sitting upright in Yunho’s bed with his legs folded outward under him in the shape of a ‘W’, decides to play around with Yunho a little. This sitting position, plus the way his t-shirt and shorts now drape around his body, makes him feel sexy and a tad bolder than he usually does.

“Oppa, last night you said you really liked me,” he delicately grips Yunho’s arm and says in a coquettish tone.

“Fuck,” Yunho pales. He refuses to spare Changmin a glance, preferring instead to stare at his knees, eyes filled with terror. A few seconds pass by and he gets off the bed.

“Miss, I am sorry for my language. I have to go. No. You have to go. I am terribly sorry for whatever I have done.”

Changmin follows him, hands still attached to Yunho’s arm. He’s delighted to find himself shorter than Yunho is when standing up, short just enough for Yunho to kiss him on the forehead without having to lift his heels off the ground.

That is if Yunho wants to, of course, because Yunho is jolting away from him when he steps closer.

“You’re not getting away with this easily Yunho. I can tell all the magazines and newspapers,” Changmin fakes a good-natured and innocent smile, looking up at Yunho’s horrified face and opening his eyes the widest he can.

“Please don’t. What do you want I’ll do it,” Yunho stutters, and Changmin can feel Yunho’s skin heating up due to nervousness under his hands.

“How about you bring me with you everywhere you go for today and tomorrow I’ll disappear? I can pretend to be a friend who just came to visit.” Changmin keeps smiling, and, using Yunho’s arm as a pivot, he swings himself left and right.

“Are you going to keep your promise?” Yunho lowers his head thoughtfully, then turns to Changmin, eyes narrowed.

“Yunho,” Changmin glares but stops suddenly because he vaguely spots something like recognition in Yunho’s eyes.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” Yunho turns away. “Now if you excuse me I have to take a shower.”

“OK,” Changmin grins at him and throws himself on the bed, content, as Yunho disappears behind the door.

Yunho does not take long to storm right back into the room with a confused look on his face.

“What were you wearing yesterday when I brought you home? And why are you in Changmin’s clothes right now?"

***

“I called our manager. I told him you’re sick and asked him to cancel all of our appointments for today,” Yunho settles on the couch next to Changmin, holding out the cereal box and pouring some bite-sized brown sugar and cinnamon-glazed biscuits into Changmin’s cupped hand.

“You picked a good day to turn into a girl though, because we have no concert scheduled for today,” he continues as he bends forward to put the paper container on the coffee table, “We will be on an indefinite hiatus till you change back into yourself again. How long do you think it’s going to take?”

“I don’t know,” Changmin says.

They sit side by side in their living room in nearly absolute silence safe for the sound of Changmin chewing on the crunchy pieces. It’s a stark contrast to the preceding commotion made up of the sound of Yunho frantically typing at his laptop in a desperate search of the Internet for a cure, punctuated with his occasionally pleading Changmin to “get to work, Changmin, aren’t you scared?,” to which Changmin would answer with a shrug of shoulders and an idle widening of eyes.

Because seriously, it’s not like it’s a disease that needs to be cured as soon as possible or else it’s going to worsen!

Also, it can be fun.

“Given that I’m a girl now, I want to make the most out of it. Would you like to go shopping for clothes with me?” Excited about all the things he can do now that he is a girl, Changmin nearly pounces on Yunho, but stops in time when he sees Yunho lean back. Changmin is way past the initial shock, which lasted only a minute after he checked himself out in the bathroom mirror this morning, but Yunho seems to need a bit more time to get used to Changmin’s girl form.

“O…kay...” Yunho’s stunned expression gradually changes into a very gentle smile, and his eyes crinkle. “How about we have lunch first? You just sit here and rest, I’ll make something,” Yunho says and pulls himself up by placing his hands on his knees. Changmin catches his wrist.

“I’m a girl. I’m not sick or something. I can still cook. But how about we go out for lunch?”

“Then let’s go. I’m hungry already.”

“But I’m not wearing a hoodie and rolled-up sweatpants out,” he frowns and pouts, then he smiles when Yunho chuckles, “Sure, clothes first.”

“No, clothes and then lunch, because I’m hungry too, and then more clothes,” Changmin whines, trying his luck just to see to what extent Yunho can yield to his wish. He’s also aware thanks to the rumbling in his stomach that his appetite is still pretty much the same even though he’s a girl now. “Who knows when I’m going to turn back into a guy again, I’m going to need a lot of clothes, just in case,” he says.

“Anything for you, miss,” Yunho closes his eyes briefly and bows before walking backward to his room, still bowing, causing Changmin to burst out laughing.

***

Two hours later Changmin descends to the underground parking garage of the mall in a citrus yellow floral dress, a taupe cardigan and a pair of basic chocolate leather flats, “go with everything,” he tells Yunho and the latter nods at him acknowledgingly. Yunho puts Changmin’s now too-big sneakers and the paper bag containing Changmin’s discarded hoodie and sweatpants in the trunk of the car while Changmin is busy stuffing a pouch of hair ties in his cognac leather crossbody bag.

“My, what a coincidence!” a female voice causes both of them to look up.

“Soojin!” Yunho cries out, walking past Changmin towards the girl and envelops her in a hug. “I haven’t seen you since forever!” they coo in near unison. Soojin taps Yunho’s back a few times then, when they pull apart, gestures towards Changmin with her hand.

“And may I ask who this lovely lady is?”

“Oh!” Yunho scratches the back of his head. “I forgot to introduce you two to each other. This is a friend of mine who just came to visit. Soojin, this is...”

“Taeyeon. Nice to meet you Soojin,” Changmin says and offers his hand, which Soojin then shakes with an amiable smile.

“Taeyeon, this is Soojin,” Yunho beams, visibly relieved by Changmin’s quick wit.

“I know Soojin,” Changmin says.

“How?” Soojin opens her mouth wide and raises both of her eyebrows in an exaggerated incredulous manner.

The three of them laugh out loud, only stopping when some other people in the parking lot start giving them disapproving looks. Soojin then jabs her elbow at Yunho’s ribs and gives Yunho a wink and an understanding nod.

“No Soojin,” Yunho chuckles, “This is not my ex-girlfriend. She’s just a friend.”

“Not the one you made a heart with 300 candles in a primary school playground for?”

“No.” Yunho shakes his head quickly, still grinning wide.

Now it’s Changmin who raises both of his eyebrows. Yunho has never told him this story before. Soojin turns to Changmin, pointing her thumb at Yunho and wrinkling her nose as if saying, “Can you believe this guy?”

“So Taeyeon, how long are you staying?” she asks.

“Depends on how Yunho treats me.”

***

“Taeyeon?”

“Yes.”

“No, Changmin. Why Taeyeon?”

Changmin puts the menu down.

“That could have been my name. My mom thought she’s expecting a girl. If I had turned out to be a girl, then she would have 3 daughters now, Taeyeon, Sooyeon, Jiyeon, but I’m not a girl, so I am just Changmin, and my name has nothing to do with anything.”

Yunho nods thoughtfully. Changmin suddenly has an idea.

“You should call me Taeyeon.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m a girl now. I look different. Talking about that,” Changmin stands up and walks to Yunho’s side of the table. “Smile,” he says, swooping down, wrapping an arm around Yunho’s shoulder and smooshing their cheeks together, “we’re taking a picture to remember the day I turned into a girl.”

Changmin sets the picture as the wallpaper for his phone. He wonders if it’s narcissism if he thinks he can spend hours looking at Taeyeon’s face. The eyes are still the same but everything else is smaller and more refined. The nose, the ears, the cheekbones. His jaw is no longer square, but curve gently, the two halves meet at a dainty chin, and his whole head rests on top of a long thinner neck.

“Changmin, can we order now?”

“Taeyeon. And yes.”

After sending the waiter away with their orders, Changmin observes Yunho tap his fingers on the table and look around at everything but Changmin for what seems like an eternity. “It must be because of Taeyeon,” Changmin thinks, and it amuses him to no end because normally his friend is talkative to the point of annoying sometimes.

“Say something to Taeyeon, Yunho. It’s getting awkward,” he says, well aware through the way Yunho nervously wrings his hands that he’s being mean, but he has never seen Yunho like this, and Yunho like this is all sorts of adorable.

“OK… So… uh…Taeyeon… what do you like?”

“I like cooking and sci-fi movies.”

“OK” is all Yunho comes up with to answer to that.

Luckily the waiter brings bread and extra virgin olive oil out so they don’t have to talk anymore. Changmin pulls his hair up into a bun, “so that my hair does not interfere with my eating,” he says before digging in. Yunho munches on one slice in silence while Changmin finishes the rest of the plate.

It’s a cool noon and the restaurant opens its door and all of its windows. Wind blows from the river, causing some shorter strands of hair to free from the hold of the hair tie and flutter in front of Changmin’s forehead. Changmin stops eating once in a while to gather them and tuck them behind his left ear.

When he looks up from his butternut squash risotto, Changmin catches Yunho staring at him intently.

“What?”

Yunho startles, shakes his head profusely and averts his gaze to his hands. He idly pokes his mashed potatoes with his fork, and in the process, knocks the salt and pepper shakers off the table with his forearm. While he’s bending down to pick them up, the wind tips the delicate balancing of his knife on the rim of his plate and causes the utensil to slide backward onto the table, off its edge and straight to the ground.

Changmin lowers his head to hide his smile while a blushing and stuttering Yunho asks the waiter for another knife.

***

Changmin concludes that Yunho looked hilarious sitting at the feet of a mannequin, elbows on his knees, hands supporting his head, alongside a bunch of husbands and boyfriends waiting for their wives and girlfriends who were merrily scurrying through clothes and bustling about in and out the changing rooms. 

Yunho is also bad at lying because he could barely hide his obvious yawn when Changmin came out of the changing room with the 4th dress he tried on in the 10th store they went to. He gave Changmin a thumb up and absolutely no useful comment whatsoever every time Changmin twirled around and asked Yunho how he looked.

But Yunho is a lot of fun to hang out with. Never in their 9 years of living together had Yunho and Changmin had a walk in the park, ice cream cones in their respective hands, and just talked about anything they see in general or laughed at funny childhood memories. 

Yunho can even make groceries shopping fun by pointing fruits and vegetables to Changmin and telling anecdotes about them. Had it not been for him Changmin would not know that a strawberry is actually not a berry, but a banana is!

They should totally do these things more often, Changmin comes to a final conclusion, turning off the stove and ladling out the penne rigate onto two plates. But before he can tell Yunho that, the latter suddenly raises his voice.

“Would you like to go to a movie with me after dinner?” Yunho asks.

“Sure,” Changmin answers and smiles, having already forgotten what he was planning to say.

“Good,” Yunho says and smiles too before taking the two plates to the table.

***

“Can we have two tickets for the ferris wheel please,” Changmin, rocking back and forth on his feet, chirps to the unamused amusement park employee behind the counter. It’s almost midnight and Yunho and Changmin are very likely the only two passengers on this last run of the ferris wheel before they close the park.

Changmin sits a timid-looking Yunho down on one of the two benches in the ferris wheel car and settles on his right. As the car goes up, the city below them expands. Bright dots of lights scatter all over an uneven canvas of buildings of different heights. The river by the park is pitch black but glistens here and there like the finest of silk.

“So Yunho, what did you think about the movie?” Changmin puts his left forearm on the sill of the window behind their backs and turns to Yunho.

“It’s uhh...interesting? I particularly like the...robots at the...beginning?”

“And why so?” Changmin asks in the most genuinely inquisitive tone he can muster, trying his best to suppress laughter.

“Uhh…”

“Is that because it’s the only part you watched before you fell asleep?” Changmin pushes.

Yunho looks scared; and Changmin bursts out laughing.

“Why did you do that?”

“I wanted to impress you. You said you liked sci-fi movies.”

Watching the way Yunho looks down and touches his ear right now, Changmin has no trouble believing that this is the same boy who made a heart with 300 candles for the girl he likes, and suddenly Changmin’s excited. Before he knows it he’s holding the back of Yunho’s neck and leaning forward.

Yunho dodges just in time and gathers him into a hug before separating them and looking at Changmin’s face. “Changmin,” Yunho murmurs.

Yunho blinks. A thin coat of water glazes his brown eyes. He sighs and turns away without saying anything else.

Changmin slides closer to Yunho. Tilting his upper body to Yunho’s side, resting part of his back against Yunho’s chest, he grabs Yunho’s hands, wraps himself tightly in Yunho’s arms and presses his temple against Yunho's cheek. He’s glad that in this position, neither of them can see the other’s face, because at one point he is not sure whether the hiccup that he hears or the shudder he feels coursing through his body is his or Yunho’s.

They stay like that till they get off the ferris wheel. The silence continues in the car ride home, only ending when Yunho says “Good night, Changmin,” voice hoarse and nose stuffy, and retreats to his room.

***

Changmin wakes up this morning to something completely normal.

His muscles are back, his hair is back, his toes touch the wooden board at the end of his bed when he stretches and the hair on his head is short now. Still groggy from sleep, he claws around for his phone to see what time it is.

When he turns the phone on the first thing he sees is the picture of Yunho and this girl smiling happily, and a familiar pain pricks at the corner of his eyes like a hot needle.

It’s early enough. He’ll acquire a cold spoon from the cupboard before Yunho gets up and sees his puffy eyes.


End file.
